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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Eddie Redmayne amazed by A-list pals

BELFAST TELEGRAPH

The British star is generating Oscar buzz thanks to his vivid portrayal of Professor Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, and he isn't the only one in his social circle to be doing well. His good pal Benedict Cumberbatch has been lauded for his film The Imitation Game, while Jamie Dornan features in the hotly-anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation due out in February.

"There’s a group of us. Ben [Cumberbatch] and Tom [Hiddleston] are old friends, but my closest buddies are probably Andrew [Garfield], Tom Sturridge, Jamie Dornan and Charlie Cox," he told Stylist magazine. "I remember being in LA [six years ago] with Jamie, staying on friends’ floors and going to auditions but having nothing to do in between. We ended up driving to this hotel where you get free parking if you buy something to eat, so we’d share a club sandwich and have ruthless, relentless games of ping-pong for an entire afternoon. Frankly, it was astounding any of us managed to achieve anything."

Having friends in the industry helps Eddie deal with some of the trickier aspects, such as fame. However, he is still surprised by the ferocity of feelings some of his fans seem to have. The 32-year-old star recalled one surprising encounter which his family won't let him live down.

"Someone once asked me in an interview which cartoon character I fancied when I was younger and I said, 'Oh, I sort of liked Nala in The Lion King,'" he recalled. "Then one day, I was doing a play in London and it was my birthday, so I was with my family going to dinner after and a fan was standing there with this big Nala teddy. My brother looked at me like, ‘Why have you been given that?’"

As well as riding a career high, 2014 has been a good year for Eddie personally. He got engaged to publicist Hannah Bagshawe in May, which he calls the best thing to have happened to him.